CREATIONS

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TanzNacht solo Berlin commissioned dance solo, 33 mins in a loop.

Commissioned by Meg Stuart, i created a solo based on the movement materials i have developed under my collaboration as a dancer in Stuart’s work.

It was shown in TanzNacht Berlin in September 2023.

https://tanznachtberlin.de/

Maneras de Salir (Ways to get out) Choreographic piece for 3 dancers, 55’.

Dance performance that addresses the notions of distances and closeness not only from measurable and physical spaces, but also in mental and emotional spaces, seeking to generate a performative-perceptual-conceptual device where we can see a superposition of maps with coordinates of ideological, economic, social, geographical, sentimental, emotional positions, etc.

Three performers/dancers talk and dance at the same time. They explain the distances and closeness they see in the other with respect to themselves, while their bodies oscillate between different points in the space that exists both within their bodies and in the room they occupy, and between different moments in the interaction between humans and with other living beings. The clash between these two dimensions, of doing and saying at the same time, generates a game where it is not very clear who is speaking, nor what reality it is pointing to, generating a multiplicity of maps made up of the now, the past and the future simultaneously.

«And now where are we?»

“Where are you speaking from?”

«Who speaks?»

Where are the dancers now?

When we are in a place, how many spaces do we inhabit at the same time?

What are the true distances between one point and another?

Concept and choreography: Varinia Canto Vila.

Created with and for/performed: Rodrigo Chaverini, Poly Rodriguez Sanhueza and Varinia Canto Vila.

Sound creation: Loreto Ríos Montecinos.

Light creation: Eduardo Cerón.

Wardrobe: collective creation.

Producer: Marcela Olate Vega.

Special thanks: Joel Inzunza Leal, Daniela Marini, Alexandra Miller, Marcela Olate, Hugo Navarro, Sandra Vila, Jorge Canto, Jaime San Martín, Paula Esp, Paula Martinez.

Financing: wills of the artists and minimum private financing.

Support: Centro Nave and Gabriela Mistral Center.

Dates:

From July 13th to August 5th in Gam, Santiago de Chile: https://gam.cl/danza/maneras-de-salir/

19 and 21 january 2024 in Centro Nave, Santiago de Chile: https://nave.io/en/programa/maneras-de-salir/

Objects Carry Things performance, 10 mins.

Objects Carry Things is a rant in movement and verbal word that is built under the logic of cause and effect. Inspired by the mechanics of construction of meaning of the chilean payas and also by the machine of production chain that the system of mass production generates, it wanders between linguistic, material and sense making dimensions, connecting realities and things.

Solo a cappella created and performed by Varinia Canto Vila.

 

Dates:

March 10th 2023, shown in the living room of a house in Valparaíso, Chile.

April 8th 2023 in Centro de Extensión del Instituto Nacional, Santiago de Chile.

Naming Fiction Co-created dance work with Quindell Orton, premiered online in May 2021.

Naming Fiction is an invitation and an experiment. An invitation to explore «fiction» as a starting point, which it comes above and around the “facts”, what parades as a fact, where the unraveling can take us a line of fact in fiction. Different worlds open up side by side, spaces are formed and reformed, it tests the line between the existent and the non-existent.

It is also an invitation to the artists to do a solo for the other in 5 days and to be the other’s interpreter. An experiment in co-authorship with each creator speaking through another body that comes together in 4 stories.

Credits:

Choreography and performance: Varinia Canto Vila, Quindell Orton – Light design: Dennis Dieter Kopp – PR: Simone Lutz = photos: Gabriela Neeb – Camera and editing: Pablo Lauf. Second camera: Paula Tschira. Co-production: HochX Theater a Live Art, Munich, Germany.

https://theater-hochx.de/naming-fiction.html

Movement in the Relationship between law and life Ongoing research-based project, 2016 onwards.

Movement in the Relationship between law and life it is an ongoing research-based project on the relation between law and movement. It asks in what way law enables or not movement, and wants to find ways to make action/behavior-based portraits of this relation, as a way to graph the way law creates existential, behavioral and social territories. It looks at how movements, gestures and actions are conditioned by a legal matrix, and it aims to use them to map the territory that law creates. Given the fact that in nowadays-democratic systems, the legal system is thought of as a system of rules and norms that regulate human behavior in order to ensure peace and control violence, this project wants to place the body as the materiality of the legal. Here the body is conceived not as an abstract entity, but who’s life is conditioned by a set of orders and commands that will shape its social interactions and becoming.

First materialization of Movement in the Relationship between law and life was with Cartographers, January 2017, Brussels, Belgium

Cartography refers to mapping. Mapping refers to the practice of dealing with a territory. In the particular case of this project, it is the territory partitioned by law. At this time of history, it is impossible to find a place on Earth –except no man’s lands that are inhabitable, and of specific political moments of suspension of the law, theorized by Agamben as the state of exception – that are not ruled by a jurisdiction. All spatial dimensions on Planet Earth – sea, sky, land – function under more than one body of law – international, national, regional, communal, amongst others. In this matrix of rules, this project wonders how the body –the social body – moves.

Cartographers found a first showing moment under the frame of my end presentation Landings of my a.pass post-graduate in January 2017. https://apass.be/landings/

In Landings i made a performance-video installation.

In 2019, Movement in the Relationship between law and life was awarded a Fondart in dance research 2019 in which different experiences were carried out such as: workshops for different social groups (secondary students, media art students and media artists, domestic workers, professional dancers), writing a scientific article with architect Daniel Opazo and lawyer Gabriel Muñoz, experiences of the relationship between movement and law in public and private spaces and writing exercises during the pandemic.

Links video:

https://vimeo.com/201253740

https://vimeo.com/375787210

https://vimeo.com/375786771

https://vimeo.com/557170587

https://vimeo.com/557167109

https://vimeo.com/557161514

https://vimeo.com/354432812

by getting one’s hands dirty Performance-dance piece, 55’.

With ‘by getting one’s hands dirty’ I start out where my last piece ended. In the previous piece ‘During Beginning Ending’ I made a constant process of unsettled becomings appear by performing a state of being mid-way, half completed, never achieved, to expose an unstable subjectivity made out of intentions and desires. Having been concerned with what is in process, I now look into collages of still images and their displacements as tools for activating perception and attention otherwise.

In ‘by getting one’s hands dirty’ I give myself the task to consider collage as a performative principle. Here, movements and interactions with objects will get interrupted and fragmented, piercing the thick and opaque layer made by the quotidian and functional use of these very objects. As a result the materiality of objects might appear. In ‘by getting one’s hands dirty’, performers reconfigure attention from use to materiality, by exploring sensually actual objects on stage, by seeing and observing them by means of the sense of touch.

What if another listening quality and care develops by taking things for what they can do (to us) rather than for what they are used for? In ‘by getting one’s hands dirty’, two figures, two women, two bodies engage in an exercise of reaching out and altering surfaces, like the surface of their own bodies, the surface of objects, of the floor that is under their feet, or the walls of the building… The performers aim at exploring and testing borders and passages between and to other dimensions/worlds, while constantly asking themselves: “where are we now?”

 

Credits

Concept and choreography: Varinia Canto Vila.

Originally created and danced/performed: Lilia Mestre and Varinia Canto Vila.

Danced/performed: Paula Almirón and Varinia Canto Vila.

Music: Christoph Albertijn and Yannick Guédon.

Light design: Dominique Pollet.

Dramaturgy: Pierre Rubio.

Set dramaturgy: Sofia Caesar.

Produced: Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Vlaamse Gemeenschapcommissie, Kunstencentrum BUDA, Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek, Charleroi-Danses, Volksroom Brussels and Cabra VZW.

 

Dates:

October 5th 2017, premiere in Buda, Kortrijk, Belgium: https://www.buda.be/en/residentie/varinia-canto-vila-cl-be-by-getting-ones-hands-dirty

November 2nd 2017, Brussels, Pianofabriek.

September 9th 2018, Buenos Aires – Argentina, Estudio Fraga.

March 14th 2018, Brussels, Volksroom.

March 30th 2019, De Singel, Antwerpen, Belgium: https://desingel.be/en/programme/dance/varinia-canto-vila-by-getting-ones-hand-dirty

April 24th 2019, Stuk, Leuven, Belgium: https://www.stuk.be/en/program/by-getting-ones-hands-dirty

 

LINK TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/243102395

LINK VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/240158784

Throwing case on the relation between law – gesture – materiality. Performance of 15 mins.

I used the choreographic principle of body fragmentation to understand the legal implications of that body part in movement. More specifically, in Throwing Case, a gesture – the hand gesture of throwing something at someone or thing – became the triggering agent for the relation between law and materiality. With this gesture, I unpacked the ways in which a degree of crime does not only depend on the act but also its material context. This performance attempts to map what a gesture can and can not do in certain contexts given by what and to what it throws, revealing the way law sets hierarchies of the values of human life over the animal for example, and the value of private property over life. By focusing the research on how movements and gestures of the hand are enabled or disabled, legal and illegal implications emerge. 

 

Dates:

December 15th 2019, Throwing Case by Varinia Canto Vila, participates in Talismán/Reparación Social Textil, curated by Patricia Ruíz Delgado, Santiago de Chile.

December 7th 2019, Throwing Case participates in the visual and performative arts exhibition As we advance in a dangerous place, a performative program curated by Alexandra Mabes, Santiago de Chile.

December 1st 2019, Santiago de Chile at a Dilo Bailando community event.

June 17th 2017 Brussels, FESTIWOL in the context of Cartographers of Varinia Canto Vila.

January 20th and 21st 2017 at LANDINGS in Brussels, in the context of Cartographers of Varinia Canto Vila. https://apass.be/landings-2/

I:Roger Video of 14 mins , on the frame of RITA: Platform for collaborative work by CABRA VZW artist association.

My contribution: explores the relation between thought and action.

This project starts with the will to engage each other in a collaboration, to involve each other in a working situation exchanging materials, methods, topics, things that make us curious and sometimes obsessed, work. We chose Rita as the name of the project because it doesn’t mean anything in itself but a name, which entails an entity that generates actions and contains behaviors. Also because we like it. Rita is an ongoing dialogue that aims to create spaces for extracurricular activities shared among the members of CABRA.

Rita behaves like a relay game: for two months a Cabra’s member works on something aimed to be proposed to someone else, who will have another 2 months before giving it to another person, and so on and so on. The proposition doesn’t have to be necessarily an artifact. It can be any kind of initiative, like a draft, a thought, a method, a topic, etc. The host of the proposal can work with any media, material and sources, as well as to work alone or with other people (whether they are or not Cabra’s members). Each participant is responsible to host, intervene, transform, deconstruct, reconstruct, destroy, subvert, enrich, develop, reformulate, displace or change perspectives on the received proposal. Each proposition has to be documented on the web. The proposal can be in different formats and can be the work itself or its documentation or a trace of the process. Therefore Rita is recorded genealogically on the web and the participants can refer back and forward to its history. We will use the website of the vzw to host Rita. Rita might crystallize to be presented to a public or take visibility in any ways (artistic project, documentary of the process, dance piece, video, action, book, …), but this is not the main goal of it. Because the priority is put in the development of ideas or/and practices, and not the result, Rita is unfinished in itself. Therefore we envision Rita like a growing field rather than a specific project.

CABRA is Sara Manente, Marcos Simoes, Norberto Llopis Segarra, Jaime Llopis, Santiago Ribelles Zorita, Kyung Ae Ro and Varinia Canto Vila.

https://cabra.weebly.com/ritas-blog

Video link: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/65463363

During Beginning Ending Dance solo piece, 45 mins.

The actions and movements in During Beginning Ending could be compared to construction-sites. Construction-sites attract attention because they show us buildings which are mid-way: they will be completed or will cease to be. This state of being «mid-way» is perhaps the best moment to see the intentions, projects and desires of mankind…

A physical landscape of thought processes defines the realm in which the dancer works. This space of intention and desire gives visibility to the relation

between the dancer and the moving body. It reveals how self-observation is being a part of the observed system. Unfinished movements and actions get absorbed into meaninglessness and make what remains absent more present.

«Varinia Canto Vila’s piece experiences the performer as a liminal subjectivity that is only able to observe its performativity in a constant process of resistance and unsettled becoming, thus questioning the ability of possessing of the own corporeal material» (Angelina Georgieva – participant of Critical Endeavour 2009).

Concept and dance: Varinia Canto Vila.

Music: Christophe Albertijn, Biosphere.

light design: Brian Broeders and Dominique Pollet.

dramaturgic assistance: Marnix Rummens, Pierre Rubio production: wpZimmer Antwerpen.

Co-production: Studio deSingel Antwerpen – supported by: Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Bains Connective, KC Buda Kortrijk, Workspace Brussels

Thanks to: Marta Coronado, Marcos Simoes, Jaime Llopis, Lilia Mestre.

Winner of work in progress category of Prix Jardins d’Europe Festival 2009.

Shown in Working Title Festival, 2009, Brussels; Bougge B at deSingle in 2010, Antwerpen, Belgium; Malta Festival in 2010, Poznan, Poland; Working Title Platform 2010, Brussels, Belgium; Cultuurcentrum Stroombeek in 2011, Belgium; Vooruit in 2011 in Intimate Strangers in Gent, Belgium.

https://desingel.be/en/programme/dance/

https://archiwum.malta-festival.pl/performance/during-beginning-ending/

https://issuu.com/cultuurcentrumstrombeek/

https://www.damagedgoods.be/intimate-strangers-ghent

LINK VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/117187694?share=copy

https://vimeo.com/112336197 Contraseña: DBE

La Zone Dance piece 25 mins.

Artistic Laboratorium initiated by Bains Connective and Elke Van Campenhoud. La Zone is the start of an elaborate research project into the undefinable borders of hospitality, generosity and the fabric of the social body. La Zone is trying to mold a space-in-between the limited zones of the experientiable: a space where behavior, speech and movement have not been negotiated yet, a place where misunderstanding is the leading principle of communication, the environment that drives our hospitality principles to their breaking point, showing us simultaneously the impotence and the potential of our cosmopolitan/ transcultural hopes and desires.

From September 27 until October 23 2010 Bains Connective took up a residency at the Forest Centre Culturel, as part of the Thematics ‘LaZone’.

On the last evening BC closes the residency with a Plankton Bar, where guest artists Varinia Canto Vila, Isabelle Pauwelyn, Alain Franco and Frederik De Wilde present the results of their research.

https://bains.be/index.php@ccid=

Beast Performance in public space, 15 mins continuously.

Wanting to find the way to fall endlessly became a weird and painful experiment. After several bruises, I decided that the problem was not mine nor gravity’s, but a matter of point of view. Falling downwards is not forever, sideways is. Utopias don’t exist to be achieved but to bring us closer to surprise. 

For the third time, Close Encounters animates street and public spaces of the city. 16 theater pieces, dance works, performances and installations will temporarily inhabit museums, galleries, café-theaters, shops, gardens and a hospital all over the city…

http://www.alkantarafestival.pt/2006/encontros.html

No Title Dance piece, 16 mins.

No Title puts in evidence the viewer’s partial access to the three dimensionality of the body. It proposes a body in which the readability of the visual with the audible appears incomplete and incongruent, enhancing the monstrosity of the body.

Concept and dance: Varinia Canto Vila – light design: Brian Broeders – production: Dansateliers, Rotterdam. Supported by: Vlaamse Gemeenschap – thanks to: Florent Delval.

video link: https://vimeo.com/114039746

Pop Steroids Performance-installation, 40 mins. 

Collaboration by Tuk (music), Kurt D’Haeseleer (video) and Varinia Canto Vila (dance).

Pop Steroids is a laptop concert disguised as a dance performance that wants to be a video clip. The central theme is the question ‘Why did Bruce Springsteen start to take steroids in the Eighties’ and combining pieces of text by Mongolian hardrock bands, philosophical essays by Thomas Carlyle and banter during songs in stadium pop concerts a videast, a dancer and musician construct a distorted visual biography of a dying performer in the age of downloadable music. With a body language that refers to special effects from video clip history and laptop music techniques, Bruce Springsteen finally disappears in a sea of pixels and distorted sounds.

Shown in Hasselt, Brakke Grond in Amsterdam and Gent.

Seulement Pour le Plaisir des Yeux Dance piece. 15 mins.

Seulement pour le plaisir des yeux was the opening performance for theatrical installation created Het is Lam by Ben Benaouisse, 2005.

“In Het is Lam Ben Benaouisse connects the different artistic disciplines which he has been active in the last decade . He puts installation , performance, video , dance, theater and text next to , through and into each other on stage and aims to write a new kind of multidisciplinary approach . InHet is Lam, the mother is a dancer , the father a cripple , the child a lamb . A stranger sneaks around the house and keeps an eye on everything . Paid todo nothing , this actor is in control.” Pieter T’Jonck in De Tijd, 2005.

http://dighum.uantwerpen.be/ptj/html/2005-01-06_Op_komst_podium.html

Enlace de video:

https://vimeo.com/205127115

https://vimeo.com/114034372

Collect-if Collaboration performance, 70 mis. Project initiated by Emil Hrvatin and Bojana Cvecic.

Collect-if  is conceived to initiate and set up an artistic platform for reflection of various dimensions of collectivity in contemporary performing arts and society. The starting-point for this initiative and project springs from the question about the status of collectivity today in political, social and artworld functions. If measured by ideological stake, collectivity in the age of liberal capitalism is devalued, depreciated, abolished in denying possibility for ideological unity under a common interest or perspective. There is however a silent consensus around it: if collectivity in strong terms seems so frightening, it does symptomatically return in the forms of unstructured, declaratively non ideologized forms, which might be called happy tribalism (supporters, ravers, even anti globalist rallies). The position of the subject constituting this type of collective is especially reflected in the performing arts – how to negotiate with collectivism and individualism which requires detachment and singularization of every member for the purpose of self-realization. In the performing arts context we recognize it as an affirmed trend of personalization and intimization of the performative approaches (»I am my own story«, »My experience is what matters«). 

http://nova.maska.si/en/productions/archive_of_past_productions/collect_if/

https://maska.si/en/book/collect-if/

«Traditional decision-making mechanisms of parliamentary democracy as voting or veto are banned . Power Games are unacceptable . Cvejic : «With a Babylonian confusion of substance, but also very revealing . By the way others run off with your idea , you get yourself in a whole new mind. » Canto Vila : «Initially , everyone was his own idea, but after a while you learn to deal with what others propose . You learn to empathize with the position of another. » Interview by Pieter Tjonck, De Tijd and Sarma. http://sarma.be/docs/2447

Collect-if  by Collect-if:

Borut Cajnko,Varinia Canto Vila, Bojana Cvejiç, Els Degryse, Ugo Dehaes, Alix Eynaudi, Emil Hrvatin, Igor Delorenzo Omahen, Rebecca Murgi, Nejc Saje, Katarina Stegnar, Miran Šušteršič, Nataša Zavolovšek.